The idea of comparing forex brokers is relatively easy until you are twenty tabs into the review sites where they appear to rank the same five brokers slightly different and never really explain the ranking. A lot of those comparisons are affiliate based and that does not imply that they are incorrect, it does indicate that the rankings are inclined towards the highest commissions paid and not towards the performance of a trader in Shah Alam or Johor Bahru trying to trade upon the London open. Continue reading related this topics!
It is not the number of features displayed on the homepage that makes brokers special to Malaysian traders. It is how the platform performs in the real world conditions – when the news takes place, when withdrawals take place and when things are not going as planned.
Exness vs XM: These are the two names that will come in your mind.
The reason why these two prevail in the Malaysian forex discussions is because of their dominance. They are both available, both accept local payment options and both have invested in the markets of Southeast Asia, instead of using the region as a back office.
Exness is faster in withdrawal. The quick processing of e-wallets and local bank transfers is something that traders here are truly enjoying particularly those that use trading income as an extra cash flow that they desire to have at their disposal in a very short time. The standard account spreads are competitive, and the Exness Terminal platform is not sturdy it looks as though it was aimed at children. Diversity of account types, cent account up to raw spread options, also implies that there is room to develop without changing the brokers.
XM competes in the areas of education and access to accounts. The minimum deposit of USD 5 on micro accounts is not a gimmick but a reality and to someone who is actually desiring to open small even as he or she learns, it is important. Their market-analysis and weekly webinars will not make anyone a professional trader overnight, but having learning material organized somewhere is obviously beneficial to novices. The swap-free accounts provided by XM can be availed without undue friction which is much at the Malaysian Muslim traders.
The honest take? Exness has the advantage over the withdrawal reliability and narrower spreads as they increase and these factors are important to the person. XM is a better place to begin with, as a starting point.
IC Markets and Pepperstone: It’s Time to Get Down to Business.
They both are ASIC-regulated Australian brokers, and their reputations regarding the quality of executions are high. The IC Markets specifically have developed into the destination of traders who have grown beyond platforms that cater to beginners and seek the truly tight raw spreads and quick execution. Their ECN accounts are frequently displaying EUR/USD spreads that are less than 0.1 pips throughout the liquid periods with a nominal commission of a lot. Such a model is much applicable to big-volume traders and not broader spread commission-free accounts.
Pepperstone is quite similar in terms of quality and operating on the same sector of the market. Certain traders find their cTrader integration to be better than MetaTrader cTrader interface is significantly more user-friendly in terms of visibility of the depth of market and managing the order. The decision between IC Markets and Pepperstone can be reduced to a question of which platform is more natural than a considerable difference in performance.
These two brokers are not the right point to start as one learns. The minimums required in their accounts are greater, the emphasis is placed on performance as opposed to an emphasis on education, and you are supposed to understand what you are doing. It is not a criticism, it is proper positioning.
FBS: Trendy yet Questionable.
The base of FBS in Malaysia is huge and this has been fuelled by intensive local promotion and referral system which rewards the users of the product to attract new users. Their bonuses packages are the best in the market and this is appealing to newcomers. It is the part worth taking a closer look at as well.
Bonus money is usually accompanied by volume requirements that the customer must achieve before he can claim it- often very high ones. A trader who is interested in bonus hunting may find himself or herself over trading in an attempt to fulfill requirements, this is a sure way to destroy the account. The underlying broker may not be bad as such (although the business model involved in bonuses may tend to influence trader behaviour in a manner that may not always be in the best interest of the trader).
eToro: A New Type of Platform.
eToro is in another category as compared to the brokers mentioned above. It is constructed with social trading and copy trading the capability of automatically follow the positions of expert traders. It is an interesting option to someone who desires to be exposed to the market but does not necessarily want to do the analytical work.
The higher spreads and lack of flexibility in trade is at the cost of a pure forex broker. eToro charges a significantly higher spread in EUR/USD than what is charged by IC Markets or Pepperstone. In passive copy trading that should suffice. Those spreads are a significant cost burden in the longer run, in order to conduct active manual trading.
It is also interesting to note that eToro is more of a CFD broker than a forex broker, at least in the traditional sense of the term: the positions are contracts and not in fact exchanges of currency. In the vast majority of retail applications this difference is irrelevant, but it should be known what you are in fact dealing with.
The Question of Platform is Greater than Brokers Would Admit.
There is no reason why Metatrader 4 has not made the industry standard. Compared to other auto-trading applications, the quantity of custom indicators, expert advisors and community-created tools that are compatible with the MT4 are unmatched. The technical upgrade is called MT5 and includes more types of orders and other asset types but in case of straight forex trading there is little significant difference.
The broker-specific platforms, such as the Exness Terminal, eToro web interface, are truly well designed to suit their intended user but have the inherent drawback of making it difficult to leave the ecosystem. When you change brokers later on, your arrangement does not come with you. Metatrader accounts can be moved around. Portability silences the long-term value.
cTrader is a worth learning tool in case you are transitioning into the ECN style of trading with brokers like Pepperstone or IC Markets. The interface is rewarding to traders who are concerned about the precision of their orders and the backtesting tools are more transparent regarding the way the strategies would have performed historically.
The Comparison Nobody Speaks about: Customer Care at 11 PM.
A majority of the forex comparison articles rate the brokers on the basis of spreads, regulation, and platform availability. The few that take serious consideration are what happens when something is going wrong outside the business hours.
Malaysian traders will frequently be busy at the London and the New York sessions, which last into the night back home. The fact that the trade cannot be responsive at 10 PM when there is a platform issue only adds unimaginable stress. Live chat brokers that have 24/5 staff who actually talk and know the platform rather than read off a script should be charged a few more spreads.
Exness and XM are also graded higher on responsiveness of Southeast Asian support as compared to IC Markets or Pepperstone where support is also good but not as local oriented. It is a fact that really distinguishes and it is underweighted in most of the comparisons.
Regulation is Not an Ex-Post Facto.
However, whatever broker you land on, ensure that you check the regulatory licence on your own. Do not trust a site of the broker at face value, do verify the ASIC register, the FCA register or any other body they are purporting to be registered under. An authentic licence requires thirty seconds to check and sifts an alarming amount of dubious businesses that have learnt to speak the correct words without the qualifications.
Over the years, Malaysian market has experienced sufficient scams of broker exits and withdrawals freezes, to the extent that this is now a standard check among the experienced local traders. The new traders who do not skip it are making the same mistake their predecessors used real money on.